74. Parents

74. Parents
Raelyn pov

When we reached the spot Torin had chosen to set up camp, I was completely out of breath.

Not because I had walked here myself—quite the opposite, actually.

No, I was out of breath because I had been holding it for most of the way. I had no clue wolves ran that fast. I held on for dear life, with my eyes closed for the first bit until I realized if I couldn’t see, then I wouldn’t be able to see if we were to crash. So I had my eyes open, tears streaming down my face from the wind, and was scared out of my mind.

“Was it fun?”

Torin looked so excited.

“Yeah?” I replied, trying my best to smile.

“So, what do you think?”

I took a second to catch my breath and then looked at everything Torin had set up. It was adorable how much effort he had put into this.

“I had some help, but, -“ I didn’t let Torin finish and instead kissed him.

He picked me up, and we deepened our kiss. I wasn’t used to living with so many people, and while in Torin’s room we had privacy,
I was still aware there were always people nearby.

And now it was just him and me. No packhouse. No people. No staff. Just us.

I felt him becoming hard, which wasn’t that difficult to feel considering he just shifted back and wasn’t wearing any clothes.

But it didn’t scare me.

Maybe this weekend I’d feel ready to finally take the next step.

Torin was the first to break free. “As much as I want to continue kissing you, I have something for you.”

“You have?” I asked, my arms still wrapped around my giant man.

“I need to put you down, though, to grab it.”

I reluctantly let myself be lowered to the ground and waited patiently as Torin went into the tent. It was a really nice tent we had chosen together. It even had a skylight so we could look at the stars at night.

Torin came out wearing some shorts and holding two boxes in his hands and a folder with files.

“Happy birthday, Raelyn.” Torin said with a big smile as he handed me the first box.

“How did you know?”

“I’ll explain everything after the gifts,” Torin replied with a grin.

“Were you mad I didn’t tell you?”

He shrugged, “maybe disappointed, but I'd figured it was more about you than me. We can talk about that later. First, open the box.”

I opened the box to find a jewelry set. A necklace and matching earrings. The stones on the jewelry were unlike anything I had seen before.

“It’s called a black opal,” Torin explained. “They’re very rare gemstones, but don’t worry, they don’t cost a fortune.”

“What does that mean?”

Torin chuckled, “they’re not cheap, but they’re not worth millions either. If it were up to me, I’d buy you the whole Cartier store, but I wanted something that suited you. And this stone, it kind of reminds me of you. It’s a dark stone, yet the colors shine so brightly. Like you, even in the darkest time, you are able to shine through.”

The stone was beautiful, and I loved that Torin knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be comfortable wearing something around my neck that could pay for a house.

He handed me the other box, and I opened it to see a set of car keys. “You should have your own car. A cute girly one.”

“It’s too much.” I said.

“No, I held back, dimples. Trust me. I wanted to buy so much more, but I knew it would make you uncomfortable. So please accept these gifts.”

“If you tell me how you found out it was my birthday…” I replied.

Torin helped me put my necklace on while I put my earrings in.

“Can I make us a fire first?”

“Is it that long of a story?” I asked. “Or are you stalling?”

“Both. I don’t want to ruin your good mood.”

Once the fire was lit, Torin sat down on the chair beside me. “Here,” He said, handing me the file he held earlier. “We found these in Dylan’s home office.”

Inside was my passport and my birth certificate, plus some other official documents.

“You went to his house?”

Torin ran his hand through his hair, “I had sent some people to Dylan’s house to gather everything that belonged to you pretty quickly after I killed him. If the police found his body, they would search the flat, and I wanted it to look like you left everything behind after you moved in with Ruth.”

“So you’ve had these for a while?”

He nodded, “they were brought to my office, and I completely forgot about it with everything that was going on. It wasn’t until I was called into the office yesterday.”

“Please just tell me,” He was holding back; I knew it.

“The police found his body, and they were looking for people to identify his remains. They couldn’t find you, so they called his family. They’ve been to the office, asking questions because we filed a missing person report a few days after he was killed.”

“Do they want to talk to me?” My hands were shaking as I stared at the fire.

“They do, but I have an inside guy in the police who shared that they are convinced Dylan’s cause of death was animal-related.” Torin stood up and crouched down before me. “We can go to the police station together and explain how you and Dylan were separated, and so you weren’t aware he was missing until now. It’s fine. I promise. It’s going to be okay. This is good news.”

“Okay.”

It wasn’t okay. It didn’t feel like good news. Not until I was sure there was no chance Torin would get in trouble.

Torin took my hands in his, “but while I was there, I finally looked through everything they brought in and found these papers. The birth certificate especially drew my attention, because your parents’ names are on there.”

How come I never wanted to look? I’ve always had this birth certificate in my possession. Was this another element of the spell?
I never went to look for my parents; I knew they had died, but I never tried to find out anything more. It’s crazy when I think about it. I know nothing about my parents. Not even their names.

I looked at the paper in front of me. Raemondo and Adalyn Moonveil.

I began to giggle… Rae… Lyn…“They combined their names to make mine.”

“Remember when Willow said names are important? Well, I looked your parents' names up online. Raemondo means ‘protecting hands,’ according to the internet, and Adalyn means ‘noble one.’” Torin said. “I figured if they were hiding, they would choose their new names themselves.”